speakers

Devdutt Pattanaik

Mythologist, writer, columnist and illustrator

Devdutt Pattanaik writes on relevance of mythology in modern times, especially in areas of management, governance and leadership. Trained in medicine, he worked for 15 years in the healthcare and pharma industries before he focussed on his passion full time. He is author of 30 books and 600 columns, with bestsellers such as My Gita, Jaya, Sita, Business Sutra and the 7 Secret Series. He was a speaker at TEDIndia 2009 and spoke on Myths that Mystify, East versus West. His TV shows include Business Sutra on CNBC-TV18 and Devlok on Epic TV. He consults organisations on culture, diversity and leadership and also consults various television channels and filmmakers on storytelling.

Mahaveer Singhvi

Joint Secretary , Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India

Mr. Mahaveer Singhvi is a career diplomat. He was appointed to the Indian Foreign Service (the diplomatic service of India) in the year 1999. He has been serving as Director (SAARC, BIMSTEC and Border Connectivity) in the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, New Delhi. Prior to this, he served as Director (E&SA) and was responsible for all aspects of India's multidimensional relationships with the countries of East and Southern Africa. He also served as Director in the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) Division and Deputy Secretary in Multilateral Economic Relations (MER) Division of the Ministry of External Affairs where he dealt with India's emerging relationship with the Latin American and Caribbean countries and multilateral groupings and organizations such as BRICS, IBSA, IORA, OECD etc., respectively. He also had a stint in the Technical Cooperation (TC) Division of the Ministry where he was responsible for implementation of India's flagship programme of development assistance in the realm of South- South Cooperation known as Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) Programme. In the beginning of his career as Under Secretary (On Training), Mr. Singhvi served in the East Asia Division of the Ministry of External Affairs. Mr. Singhvi had represented India on several international forums during his various assignments in the diplomatic service. He had also attended a number of professional development programmes, seminars and conferences on diverse subjects including those on National Security and Nuclear Strategy while serving in the Ministry of External Affairs.

Sanjiv Sachar

Sanjiv Sachar retired on October 31, 2016 as the Senior Partner of Egon Zehnder, the world’s largest privately held executive search firm. Sanjiv set up the Egon Zehnder practice in India in 1995 and has played a key role in establishing the firm as a market leader in the executive search space across various industry segments.
For 5 years Sanjiv was the India Country Head. In addition, he was a core member of the Firm’s Global Financial Services and Industrial Practice and led the CFO practice in India. Egon Zehnder in India, is today spread across three offices in Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore. Over the course of his two decades at Egon Zehnder, Sanjiv has mentored senior executives across industry sectors that today are either board members, CEOs or CFOs of large corporates in India and overseas. Further, Sanjiv has partnered with Indian promoters in respect of senior leadership hiring and succession planning and conducted board reviews and appointments for large Indian Groups.
In 1985, Sanjiv co-founded a Chartered Accountancy and Management Consulting firm, Sachar Vasudeva & Associates. He also co-founded an Executive Search Firm Direct Impact. During the nine year period, Sanjiv built a strong clientele which included international and local listed corporates covering diverse industries like airlines, cement, travel services, FMCG, beverages ,consumer durables, print media, energy, light engineering etc.
Sanjiv started his corporate career with SRF Nippondenso (now known as Denso), one of the world’s largest manufacturer of starter motors. This was a start- up venture, which required him to work closely with the project team to source the land, build the factory in Dadri, recruit the team across disciplines and arrange the financing.
Post qualifying as a Chartered Accountant in 1982, Sanjiv started his career with the management consulting division of A F Ferguson (now part of Deloitte). His key engagements included a World Bank project which entailed studying and evaluating the commercial and accounting function of the State Electricity boards in India.
Sanjiv was Government of India’s nominee for five years on the first board constituted of Indian Institute of Management, Rohtak. Till recently he was the member of the Strategic Advisory Committee of the Board on HR for Bank of Baroda. Also, he is on the board of KDDL Chandigarh (holding company of Ethos Watches). Further, Sanjiv is a co-investor in Trusox, a global sports apparel brand and is also advising the founder and leadership team of Trusox. In November 2017, Sanjiv launched along with other investors a mentoring hub in Gurgaon for start -up entrepreneurs called “HUDDLE”. On 21st July 2018, he was inducted as an Additional Director on the board of HDFC Bank Ltd.
Sanjiv has a Bachelor degree (Honours) from Delhi University Hindu College (1978) and is a Fellow Member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (1982).

Sumathi Sampath

Head Talent Acquisition, Infosys

HR professional and have been in the realm of HR for more than 23 years. Held various leadership roles in Talent Management & Development,Global talent experience with deep knowledge in Banking, IT, BPO and Manufacturing. Passionate about bringing the best talent and right fit for the organizations. Key focus areas are building TA capability and collaboration, as well as ensuring the business is best supported by TA to meet its objective. Have managed the Recruitment hiring for 14 countries like UK, Europe, Middle east, Asia Pacific and America.

Parul Pandey

Vice President of Talent and Engagement at Diageo India

Parul Pandey serves as Vice President of Talent and Engagement at Diageo India. In her role, she is responsible for shaping HR Strategies in alignment with Business Strategy, HR Architecture for High Performance Cultures, Organizational Transformation, and People Engagement for sustained Peak Performance. Prior to joining Diageo, she has served in senior leadership roles in leading corporates including Microsoft and Deutsche Bank.

Naresh P

President HR at Deepak Fertilisers And Petrochemicals Corp. Ltd.

Experienced Human Resources professional with a demonstrated history of working in the chemicals industry. Skilled in Strategic HR, Organization Design, Leadership Development, Change Management, Coaching, Negotiation, HR Consulting, Deferred Compensation, HR Policies, Compensation & Benefits. Strong business development professional with an Executive MBA focused on Business Administration and General Management from Scandinavian International Management Institute.

Rohit Sandal

HR Director, Lenovo

Rohit leads Lenovo's HR strategy and operations in India. He brings with him over 17 years of diverse HR experience. Prior to Lenovo, Rohit was the HR Director at Dell, where he managed HR for Bangalore, Gurgaon & Noida sites. He also held the Compensation & Benefit leadership role for Dell in India supporting their sharp ramp up and growth. Prior to Dell, Rohit worked with Mercer Consulting. He comes with a proven track record in leading employee engagement, employee relations and HR Transformation Projects across various business lines.

Rohit holds an MBA from Symbiosis Pune and a graduate degree in Economic Honors from Punjab University, Chandigarh.

About Lenovo:
Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) is a $43 billion global Fortune 500 company and a leader in providing innovative consumer, commercial, and enterprise technology. Our portfolio of high-quality, secure products and services covers PCs (including the legendary Think and multimode YOGA brands), workstations, servers, storage, smart TVs and a family of mobile products like smartphones (including the Motorola brand), tablets and apps. Join us on LinkedIn, follow us on Facebook or Twitter (@Lenovo) or visit us at www.lenovo.com

Guiding organizations in emerging market through significant growth and transformation for Business turnaround from an HR perspective has been Sabih’ specialty. Takes lot of pride for aligning organizations with business strategy and driving synergy to achieve business results.
Sabih has keen interest in ensuring that all the Company policies, processes, programs and decisions are aligned to the Organization values that create the desired culture for the Company. He has been very actively leading and influencing the Organizations he has worked for driving this convergence and creating the desired Culture. He has lead the Organization Code of conduct and Ethics initiative for MNC’s in India for more than a decade. Has been recognized for leadership transformation and coaching young leaders both within his own Organization and outside. He has been a speaker at various management and academic forums and enjoys sharing knowledge. Fond of sports, he likes honing his well acquired skills at Table-Tennis. He maintains consistency in his intellectual levels by reading. He also enjoys poetry and is versed well enough to even recite some of the most famous Urdu poets.

Abhishek Tiwary

Abhishek has over 16 years of experience in diverse industries, including Government, IT and Consulting. After graduating from the National Defence Academy (NDA), Abhishek started his career with the Indian Navy. He learnt his early lessons in People Management while in uniform. During his career, he has held a variety of positions across the HR function, namely HR strategy, performance development, learning and mobility.
In his early days at KPMG in India, Abhishek led HR in various advisory businesses and was responsible for the incubation of new businesses and a big ticket acquisition on the people side. As the HR leader at KGS, Abhishek has overseen the growth of the firm to 7,000 employees.He has been responsible for the complete suite of HR services across different geographies and businesses. In parallel, the HR function has grown to over a 100 across inter alia recruitment, HR Business Partners, strategy and learning functions.
He is keenly involved in critical decision making at KGS. Abhishek is based in India out of Gurgaon.

Muniinder K Anand

Experience
Muniinder is a prominent business leader who brings twenty plus years of experience across Business consulting, HR consulting and Industry, having rich and diversified exposure in all areas of Human Resources including Rewards and Performance, HR Transformation, Talent Management, Leadership Development and Operations. He is certified in Leadership Styles Inventory (LSI), Caliper Profile and Strategic Selling Skills – Miller Heiman. Prior to joining CCL, Muniinder was a Director with KPMG India and led the HR consulting business in the North. The diverse projects led by Muniinder in his advisory capacity included rewards, performance management, talent management, function set-up, policy design, process design and transformation among other areas within the public and private sector delivered across geographies. In his older stints, Muniinder led Mercer India’s information solutions business, set-up the Shared Services Operations for Schneider, set-up Centers of Excellence (COE) and headed business technology services portfolio for Hewitt Associates for the Asia Pacific market among many other transformation engagements across Asia Pacific, Middle East, USA and European regions.

Current Role
In the current role, Muniinder is responsible for growing CCL’s business in India and South Asia. He is responsible for business growth and management of CCL’s operations in these geographies.

Educational Background
Muniinder is a Commerce (Honors) Graduate from Delhi University and is an Associate Member of The Institute of Cost Accountants of India.

Professional Affiliations
Muniinder held the office of Joint Secretary, Delhi & NCR Chapter for National Human Resource Development Network from 2014 to 2016. He was also a Council Member of the Young Mind’s Council at NHRDN in 2015.

Nabomita Mazumdar

Top 100 Women Achiever's Award winner by the Ministry of Women and Child Development

Mazumdar is a speaker for Future of Work, HR, Startup, Women and Business, Social media and Technology. She has been invited by forums worldwide including Adobe Think Tank at San Francisco.[2]

Mazumdar has received acknowledgements and awards for her work. She was ranked second in the Top 20 HR Influencers in Social Media by SHRM India 2015.[3] She received Best 100 Young Speaker Award Cambridge English in Asia, 2011 Western Region. She was named one of the Top 25 Influential Women on Twitter by CIOL India.

Kashish Daya Kapoor

Head HR ( AVP) NEC Technologies India Pvt Ltd.

A Human Resource resource professional Kashish Daya Kapoor has over 2
decades of global experience across various industries.

She has been recognized as a key HR professional in global forums like
Telstra Women Business Leader award 2016, 10,000 women in Technology
virtual conference and the World HRD Congress.

Tanaz

Tanaz has over 20 years of experience in all aspects of Talent Management and Development. She joined Wipro in 1994 via campus placement (TISS) and has handled a variety of HR assignments in different locations and businesses. She has been a part of the core team which has worked to getting Wipro Infotech certified as PCMM – Level 5. She has worked in HR Generalist roles, with her last role leading HR for the Front Office Business which in 2007 accounted for 70% of the Outsourcing business. Since April 2014, Tanaz moved on to Learning & Development and was a part of the Coaching Initiative across Wipro Ltd. She is an ICF Associate Certified Coach (ACC) and has logged more than 100 hours of Coaching.

In July 2017, Tanaz joined Trent Limited as the Head – Corporate HR. In addition, she is also the POSH Chairperson and the Chief Ethics Officer for the organization.

Surabhi Washishth

People Director, WeWork India

Surabhi Washishth, a young dynamic HR leader, has made it a mission to revamp
the perception of Human Resources from being seen as a function which is reactive,
by proactively making employee first decisions.

She holds a B.Com Hons (Finance & Investment) from Christ University, Bangalore
and is a Global Shaper with the World Economic Forum. She started her career
working with Target in their Finance team. She then moved onto join Headout, a 500
startups alum, as their 9th employee. Here, she donned various hats, from looking
after their operations team to establishing herself as a HR manager. She grew the
team from 30 employees to 100+, and was incharge of the entire employee lifecycle.
She then joined WeWork India's founding team in 2017 and was promoted to the post
of Director of HR. Here, she manages People Strategy, Talent Acquisition, People
Operations & Learning pan-India.

The HR team holds an ‘Employee First’ mentality that supports & harnesses the
power of the people as opposed to conventional practices. Her passion for changing
the culture of HR in India starts from revamping it in the organisations that she
works for, and then ensuring these organisations are looked up to by other
organisations within the country. Naturally a problem-solver, her aim is to constantly
remove redundancies and question the status-quo and conventional culturescape
when required.

Abhimanyu Choudharyh

Abhimanyu has 10 years of experience in Sales & Marketing. In his last stint, he was associated with Allied Strips Limited where he was majorly involved in planning and strategizing for developing business and achieving the company’s sales goals. Abhimanyu holds a degree in B.A, LLB and PGDM from IMI Belgium. During his leisure, he loves to spend time with family and friends. At Xoxoday, Abhimanyu will be heading the PAN India sales team.

Mr. Tarun Ramrakhiani

Mr. Tarun Ramrakhiani, CEO Writer Relocations, an accomplished leader with over 14 years of experience in Corporate Strategy, Marketing and Business Development. His academic qualification includes Master’s Degree in Business Administration (Marketing Management) and Post Graduate Diploma in Business Administration (Financial Management) from Symbiosis, Pune.

With hands on experience in Company Management (Managing Director), Business Management (Business Head) and Functional Management (Marketing Head), Tarun has played a pivotal role in achieving organizational goals.

During his tenure at Honeywell Inc., he helped the businesses gain double digit growth in sales and earnings. Furthermore there was a very strong emphasis on people, processes & systems which bought down the attrition from 15 to 5%. His achievements won him accolades, namely – the Chairman’s Award for Marketing Leadership and the Honeywell India China High Growth Regions Awards.

As Managing Director at Santa fe India, Tarun prepared a 2020 Strategy Framework, increased customer satisfaction in key accounts from 71% to 100%, achieved 100% compliance to forecast in revenue, contribution, margin and EBIDTA, reduced AR from 40% to 21% overdue and also 16% reduction in census on account of driving operational productivity.

Akshay Mehrotra

CEO, EarlySalary

A strategic planning & marketing wiz with an extensive 12 years of work experience with some of India's biggest brands like Future Retail Ltd, PolicyBazaar.com, Big Bazaar and Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Co. Ltd.

Akshay is a role model for everyone at EarlySalary. Akshay oversees the implementation of the company's product strategy and is focused towards building the business and building EarlySalary as a Financial Institution. His sharp business acumen, coupled with an unwavering passion for customer service makes him an exemplary leader and this fact has been credited by him being conferred the ‘Most Talented CMO of the Year' award in 2013 – 2014 by CMO Asia.